What is the principle difference between the Democratic candidates on foreign policy? Well, as with so many things, Eric Blair had something both non-obvious and non-trivial to say on the topic, although (also as with so many things) he had no idea of the specifics to which his words would apply:
Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
Barack Obama is a patriot. Hillary Clinton is too, but she also has a nationalist streak. As a former American nationalist who has had the impulse beaten out of me by a relentless onslaught of … uh … facts, I find the difference significant and mildly worrisome. Emphasis on mildly. Mildly. MILDLY.
Hillary Clinton talks as though she sees the United States as a nation with a mission, endowed by the draw of history. (Whether she really believes this is another story.) That last clause is important, because it’s how rational Americans convince themselves that their nationalism is not nationalism: history really did endow the United States with an oversized importance at a lot of junctures over the 20th century. Nationalists conflate that with a special superiority.
Patriots, on the other hand, think that we had the great bad luck to be an oversized democracy at a lot of moments when it made sense for our elected representatives to assume the burden of providing international public goods in order to further our own short-term self-interest. Nice and all, but a giant-sized Greenland would have done about all the same good things, and maybe even less bad ones.
Barack Obama is a patriot. Therefore, Barack Obama is not a nationalist. Therefore, Barack Obama is also not an internationalist. Oh, it will be an advantage for the United States that so many of y’all outside our borders get confused at the proposition “non-nationalist ≠ internationalist,” but the truth will be that President Obama will, at the beginning and the end of the day, be looking out for Number One, meaning the U.S. of A., whose well-being he’ll define as the well-being of the constituencies that he cares the most about. (And who are they? See season 2 of The Wire.) That will be a revolutionary change from the last eight years. Just not the one many people expect.
What the above abstractions mean in practice below the fold.
President Obama will relentlessly lean on other countries to negotiate (or renegotiate) trade agreements that benefit the constituencies that he cares about. He’ll unhesitatingly violate other countries’ sovereignty if he believes that American security is under threat and those sovereign governments are unable to protect it. He’ll move to contain economic crises that threaten U.S. interests, he’ll help American firms abroad, he’ll annoy foreigners and make mistakes.
But they won’t be catastrophic mistakes, because at the end of the day the sentiment behind them will be that the United States is just another country. Agreements will be renegotiated, but not ignored, because it is in the interests of the United States to have international law mean something. Interventions will be organized, but not often, and rarely unilaterally, because it is very helpful for the U.S. to have international support and because the need to move policies through international forums provides a useful reality check. Unpleasant and annoying foreign leaders will be met with because, well, meeting with the King of the World President of the United States isn’t really a special privilege to be doled out to worthy satraps, but something that the President needs to do in the interest of the people of the United States. Because, you know, those other countries exist and their leaders aren’t going to go away because we don’t like them.
And there will be no explicit policy of maintaining American primacy, because (a) that’s possible only if the rest of the world fails badly; and (b) the failure of the rest of the world is a bad thing for the median citizen of the United States. Our empire-hegemony-primacy-whatever has to be self-expiring, and better that when it expires we’ve tied down everyone else in a web of rules that we wrote.
But those rules, see, sometimes they have outs, not loopholes but outs, and those outs are there for a reason. So please don’t be surprised when an Obama administration takes ‘em.
Lastly, what there will be will be a focus on using those rules to get rid of nuclear weapons. Sometimes, that will lead to unpleasant dealings with a group of unpleasant people in Moscow. At other times, that will lead to far more pleasant dealings with a bunch of noisy nationalists (and patriots!) in New Delhi. And always it will involve the United States giving things up: the right to design new nuclear weapons, the ability to stockpile nuclear weapons, and a whole bunch of nuclear weapons.
A Clinton Administration, well, lots will be the same. She’s a patriot too. Less emphasis on nuclear disarmament, maybe. (Not so good.) More likelihood that tough talk on trade would be just talk. (Better for Mexico than Obama, not so mcuh for Canada, something that I’m going to have to explain someday.) But there are two worrisome differences. One is a streak of American messianism. Frex:
History can blind you to the possibilities that lie ahead if you're just able to break free and take that step. History has weighed heavily on the Middle East. What we have tried to do over the last 30 years, starting with President Carter, moving through other presidents, including my husband, now this president, is to send a uniquely American message: It can get better, just get over it. Make a decision for hope, make a decision for peace. Create a new reality.
And (italics mine):
More broadly, human freedom and the quest for individuals to achieve their God-given potential must be at the heart of American approaches across the region. The dream of democracy and human rights is one that should belong to all people in the Middle East and across the world. Everyone who suffers under an oppressive regime, everyone whose future is stunted by ideology or religious fanaticism — every single man, woman and child deserves our support in the conviction that they too can have a future of freedom and prosperity. There is no racial, religious, cultural or other barrier that prevents people from dreaming of and even craving individual freedom. This is something that Americans across the political spectrum agree on. That we must stand on the side of democracy wherever we can help it take hold, not just with speeches but with support that helps real people take charge of their own lives. Now that is not always easy to do. And we have not always lived up to our own values. But we have a history of continuing and trying to do so.
I used to share that streak. And to some extent, I still do. After all, the U.S. has missed opportunities to intervene that would shore-up our future prosperity and security. Haiti comes to mind. And Haiti. And there’s … uh … Haiti. Plus Liberia? OK, maybe I don’t share that streak to any significant extent anymore.
The second difference between Clinton and Obama is that Clinton’s record evinces a knee-jerk hawkery. That may be posturing, but the political pressures that have lead to such posturing won’t go away if she becomes President. In 2002, she voted to authorize the war, albeit with some careful caveats that anybody who knew anything about the Bush Administration already knew didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of mattering. In 2003, she publicly slapped Howard Dean for saying that Saddam’s capture didn’t make America safer. In 2006, she attacked the Bush Administration from the right over Iran. In 2007, she voted to declare a branch of the Iranian armed forces a “terrorist organization,” although, to her credit, the resolution was carefully written to abjure any endorsement of the use of American force against Iranian assets.
To repeat, I think she’d make a fine president. I doubt that she will walk America into any more stupid wars, and I think she’s unlikely to overreach too much. And on the plus side, she’s much more likely to turn out to be a complete hypocrite on trade policy. (Although in another post I’ll try to discuss why the patriot in me is finding it harder to support free trade these days.)
I just think that Obama would make a better one. Making globalization acceptable to American voters, controlling the spread of nuclear weapons, being improving our foreign image (even if undeserved), those are big things. And things more likely to happen under President Obama. And thus, while I would like to contribute to the general ratcheting down of the passion in this primary, I would also like to say again that Barack Obama is the best choice for President of the United States in 2008, not only on option, but that realistically could be on option.
Postscript: I need more practice in writing these essays. Not really my bag. Any advice?
Yes, Noel, you probably do need more practice. Because you've just managed to define Barack Obama - and yourself - as an American nationalist.
Basically, you're saying that under the presidency of Barack Obama, the United States would move from confrontation to conciliation, while still continuously looking after its own interests because those come first. Occasionally he'd flex some muscle, but only if it's absolutely necessary for the security of the country.
That's one form of nationalism, not unlike the path that was chosen by the country that I live in after 1863 and 1944 (and still followed today). And there's nothing bad about it, because "nationalism" in itself is not and does not have to be a bad thing.
Orwell's contrast isn't particularly useful, by the way, because it tells more of his personal history than of any objective definitions of "nation" and "nationalism".
No offense, but instead of advancing this peculiar dichotomy between "patriotism" and "nationalism", you could have just as well said that in comparison between Obama and Hillary, the latter's brand of American nationalism is probably of the sort that would not go down quite as well with the rest of the people on this globe.
Cheers,
J. J.
Posted by: Jussi Jalonen | March 17, 2008 at 03:45 PM
Jussi,
After saying that a definition wasn't useful, you then proceded to use it to make a rather salient point.
You see the problem, of course.
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 17, 2008 at 04:05 PM
The problem isn't just that Orwell's definitions are not useful; you were also misusing them.
"Barack Obama is a patriot. Therefore, Barack Obama is not a nationalist". This doesn't even fit with Orwell's dictum. Where did you get the idea that patriotism and nationalism should be inevitably considered as mutually exclusive?
Moreover, you missed my criticism of your arbitrary use of definitions - i.e., that instead of using terms such as "patriotism" and "nationalism" as opposing labels, you could have just as well used _one, single term_, "nationalism", presenting the two candidates as the flip sides of that same coin.
Because that's what they would be, at least according to what you wrote. The ideals of Obama and Clinton (and you) are, based on your interpretation, all equally representative of the different strands of American nationalism. To argue that Obama or you are not nationalists would be yet another case of those "rational Americans convincing themselves that their nationalism is not nationalism".
You also made a comment of how Clinton speaks of the "United States as a nation with a mission, endowed by the draw of history"... well, what was that thing you yourself spoke of some weeks back, of the symbolic importance of electing Obama in a nation founded by immigrants? "Fulfillment of destiny" would be just one more example of nationalist rhetoric. And Obama is making these same appeals.
(And again: there's nothing wrong with it.)
Furthermore, I'm a bit baffled by some of the things you've written. Especially the part: "... whose well-being he'll define as the well-being of the constituencies that he cares the most about."
I haven't watched "Wire". So what are you saying? That according to you, Obama is a _populist_? Because that's a whole hell of a lot label than "nationalist".
In the rare case that my opinion would be of any interest, I regard Obama as a genuine nationalist who's committed to his ideals. Clinton, on the other hand, seems more like a person who cynically and opportunistically exploits nationalist tendencies for her own goals without actually subscribing to those ideas herself.
Cheers,
J. J.
Posted by: Jussi Jalonen | March 17, 2008 at 08:34 PM
Jussi, I usually find semantic debates frustrating, but because I hope you be a person of good will, I'll make an exception. (You might not have realized it, but you've been coming across as quite hostile since the swastika discussion. If it helps, I apologize for my initial outrage at discovering the symbol's use in Finland.)
Patriotism here is defined as a preference for your nation-state and its customs.
Nationalism is defined as a belief that your nation-state and its customs are inherently superior.
If the distinction is to have meaning, then the second has to be a subset of the first.
I implicitly labelled everything falling outside the second set but inside the first "patriotism." That must be where the confusion lies, because all else is semantic.
It is also possible to call these things two varieties of nationalism, but then one needs to invent adjectives with which to modify ones adjectives. That is a lot of work for a Sunday.
Orwell's distinction has the advantage of jibing with the implicit difference that most American English-speakers draw between the two words.
It has the additional advantage of giving "patriotism," as defined, a neutral connotation and "nationalism" a negative one. That also fits the way the terms are used in common speech.
I do hope that's clear.
Regarding "populism," well, you'd have to define that for me. I was stating, briefly and (apparently incorrectly) somewhat humorously that Barack Obama defined the well-being of the United States has being far more closely related to the well being of the bottom half of the income distribution --- especially those with little chance of moving out of their part of the distribution in their lifetime.
The reference to the Wire's second season had to do with the fact that the second season dealt both with the people trapped in Baltimore's ghettoes and the dockworkers finding that technological change had made their livelihoods far more precarious, and that legal and political changes had weakened the institutions that traditionally provided them economic security.
I certainly hope that clears up that reference; I made it mostly because The Wire is well worth watching by anyone who wants to understand modern America.
Finally, you seem to have understood my substantive point, and you seem to agree with my substantive point. You also seem to agree that my definitions are quite useful. You do have a disagreement with the terms to which I attached my definitions (pace Orwell).
I hate to say it Jussi, because we are both prickly men and I do not wish to offend, but it seems to me that you are simply reacting negatively to any attempt separate the meaning of the words "nationalism" and "patriotism." I can understand that, I think, but it has the disadvantage of making your implicit definitions different from that of most American English-speakers and thus impeding communication.
The Wire reference, badly written, yes. Was the rest really that confusing?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 17, 2008 at 08:55 PM
Noel, the study of modern nationalism, its various incarnations and their history just happens to be my field.
Therefore, to me, these labels are more than simply semantic issues. I'm pretty sure that your reaction wouldn't be much different if someone wrote of the economics using the terminology in a similar fashion.
My main trouble was exactly that; as you said, you gave the word "nationalism" an explicitly negative tone. For a person who, say, advocated the rights of the indigenous people to receive education in their native language in their own country - which is a form of nationalism - this negative label would be very difficult to accept, and appear as a very, very unfair.
As for "populist"; in a colloquial speech over here, it applies to a politician who unashamedly courts the popular opinion and very often some specific segment of it, emphasizing, say, regional or class issues.
So, when you write of Obama defining the well-being of the United States as the "well-being of the constituencies that he cares the most about", obviously it created an impression of some form of pork-barrel politics.
Sad to say, but your new definition didn't manage to change this image. You're suggesting that Obama equates the well-being of the entire United States with the well-being of a particular social class, namely the "bottom half of the income distribution"?
Perhaps this is justified and even necessary, given how things are in the United States, but by the standards that I'm used to, a statement such as that would be a real disservice to any politician.
When it comes to "most American English-speakers", well, Liah Greenfeld may be of Russian and Jewish origins, but he teaches in Boston, and her definitions of "nationalism", including the case of the United States, don't fit with the ones that you were using. Still, I gather that her works are standard academic reading in the country that you live in.
The final comment on impending communication with American English-speakers is definitely interesting and given the topic, there's a lot of unintentional irony in it.
(And if this was "hostile", I have to say that it's really in the eye of the beholder.)
Cheers,
J. J.
Posted by: Jussi Jalonen | March 18, 2008 at 04:14 PM
Re hostility: it's always in the eye of the beholder. My father once said, in rather earthier terms, that perceptions are reality in dealing with others, and if somebody perceives you as coming across in a certain way, then you are coming across in that way. Of course, you might not care, but that only reflects on how much you value the interaction.
I am, of course, quite guilty of this. I'm an angry man in general, and that shines through in my electronic communication. Except when I care.
Your last post doesn't read hostile at all. The tone is quite different, and I do appreciate that.
Re Liah Greenfield: to be perfectly honest, I had never heard of her. That's my failing, however, and not germane to this discussion. What is germane is that the academic usage of words is not always the same as the popular one. Her own description of her students' reaction to the word in her "Nationalism and the Mind" lecture makes the point better than I ever could.
http://www.bu.edu/uni/iass/neuro/Nationalism%20and%20the%20MInd.pdf, page 3.
Re the parallel with economic terminology: to be honest, I'm not sure. I teach at a business school, so I'm well familiar with the way strategy departments take basic microeconomic concepts such as elasticity or contestability and translate them into the terminology of the "five forces." In a related example, I usually try to avoid buzzwords in the classroom.
I'm an economic historian, not a "real" economist, so I might not be representative, but I'm not sure that terms are that freighted.
"Rationality" is the only one that I can think of, but there is still a difference. Economists define "rationality" in an almost-ludicrously specific way, whereas sociologists deliberately define "nationalism" to include a large multitude of sentiments under the rubric of "belonging to a national community."
Re "populism": okay, I get your use of the term, it's pretty standard. Thing is, Obama deliberately /doesn't/ court particular interests in his rhetoric. He does, of course, implicitly value the well-being of certain categories above that of others ... but everyone who has any opinions at all about public policy does that when forming their opinions. Everyone /has/ to do that. It's a tautology.
(BTW, his campaign hangs on today's speech.)
Re "communication": I'm not seeing the irony. I suppose you're saying that I've defined nationalism a negative thing, and I'm being a nationalist by implying that a non-standard use of commonplace terms impedes communication. You'd have to accept the broad definition of nationalist to get the irony. You'd also have to deny that the miscommunication problem exists. But it is interesting!
I suspect that it says a lot about Americans and our history that we insist on separating good "patriotism" from bad "nationalism," but I'll be damned if I have an idea what. What do you think?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 18, 2008 at 04:57 PM
I don't think Obama's candidacy hanged on today's speech, except as far as it shows that Obama can survive fake media controversies. I personally doubt that Obama's delegates would have fled en masse had he let the cable news cycle burn itself out with only (say) an extended set of controversy interviews with fat ignorant white men.
But it was a brilliant speech, and a nice bit of verbal judo, reframing the issues in Obama's favor. Again.
Posted by: Carlos | March 19, 2008 at 03:02 AM
That would be the speech on a "more perfect Union"? With its numerous references to the American past, and the nice cathcphrase: "I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible"?
(But of course it would be. And not just possible, but in some countries, even quite likely. But never mind that for now.)
That's nationalist rhetoric par excellence - and unlike in the case of Clinton, it's also quite clear that Obama believes what he is saying. He really sees the United States as a nation with a mission, endowed by the draw of history, and he bases this belief on his own personal history and his identity.
There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it all seems rather benign. And I would suspect that Obama wouldn't feel at all insulted if he was described as a nationalist - unlike Orwell, who still had to reject the term, due to his specific political background.
... in passing, Clinton does not deliver that same impression of a person who believes in those national ideals and national mission. Instead, I get the feeling that she sees _herself_ as the one with a mission, endowed purely by her own personal superiority, and she regards the presidency of the United States simply as the perfect instrument in the pursuit of this agenda.
Perhaps I've characterized her as a more satanic person than what she actually is, but I've had a lot of practice with this, observing the leading politicians of a certain large neighbouring country.
As for where this deliberate separation between "nationalism" and "patriotism" in the United States actually comes from... well, I don't know the first damn thing of the history of the American thought, but what the hell, I can always speculate.
You already used the word "Empire" when speaking of the United States. That would probably explain part of the reason why the word "nationalism" has a negative echo, and why it's replaced with the word "patriotism" instead. In the other similar countries of the world, by the way, the corresponding word would probably be "loyalism".
The one historic secession attempt may have had something to do with it, even though the said political separatism obviously failed in translating itself into a rivaling ideal of nationalism. Still, it's a reminder.
(Obama's hi-jacking of the Confederate flag for his speech was a very nice touch, by the way.)
The same "Imperial" position has raised other nationalist movements in defiance to the authority of the United States, which may be another reason making the label an unattractive one. You made that series of posts on Puerto Rico a while back. Then there's Hawaii. So, for some Americans, the characterization of "nationalism" may be unwelcome, because it's a label that's more often associated as the business of, you know, those other people.
(Again, I may be reflecting the attitudes prevalent in a certain large neighbouring country.)
Also, "nationalism" may be often conflated with "nativism", which has a special and, at least from today's viewpoint, an explicitly negative echo in the American tradition.
But of course there's also characteristic and pure American nationalism, as testified by that speech by Obama quoted above. Memory of common past and a sense of historic mission, concept of equality surpassing the social cleavages, sense of unity; all the elements are firmly there.
Scholars of modern nationalism such as Hroch, Hobsbawm or Anderson would have absolutely no trouble applying their models on Obama and his words. Mutatis mutandis, of course; the usual preconditions of common ethnicity would obviously have to be left out, but there are also some large countries in Europe where a shared ethnicity has not always been of paramount importance to the common national emotion.
Умом Aмерику не понять,
Аршином общим не измерить.
У ней особенная стать,
В Aмерику можно только верить.
Happy holidays.
Cheers,
J. J.
Posted by: Jussi Jalonen | March 19, 2008 at 02:16 PM
Ah, but here's the difference between the two candidates: Obama doesn't believe (or act like he believes) that the United States has any inherent superiority in the world. That shines through most clearly in the candidate's two articles in Foreign Affairs. After similar beginnings, the two veer off in strikingly different directions.
That said, Obama's claim that his story would only be possible in the United States --- clearly nationalist. Canada had Ujjal Dosanjh, and other European or countries of European settlement have their prominent non-white and second-generation immigrants.
Right? Right?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 19, 2008 at 03:54 PM